Berkeley Transparency Hub · Capital Accountability
In November 2024 Berkeley voters approved Measure FF — a ~$267M parcel tax whose stated purpose is a citywide pavement score of 70 by December 31, 2036. On July 7, 2026, Council adopted the first five-year plan built on that money. Buried on page 12 of the staff report is the city's own model: the funded program lands at 62, not 70, and is short roughly $8 million a year. The February briefing that introduced this plan to the public contained no projection at all.
PCI is the Pavement Condition Index, a 0–100 surface-condition score. The city projects 59 after the FY2026 paving project completes; every trajectory below starts from that point.
Under the baseline plan alone, staff project that citywide condition declines from 59 to about 56 by 2038, because construction cost escalation outruns revenue growth. Adding Measure FF turns the line upward — to roughly 62.
Staff then state plainly that neither scenario reaches a PCI of 70 within the 12-year projection period, and that closing the gap would take about $37.6 million a year — roughly $8 million more than the adopted program provides. The report closes by saying staff will "continue to evaluate additional funding sources and scope adjustments to close the remaining gap."
This is the strongest available evidence on Berkeley's street funding, and it is the city's own. Note what it is not: it is not an argument that the streets don't need work. It is an argument that a dedicated tax was sold on a specific numeric promise, and the first plan built on that tax does not deliver it.
| Component | Sections | Centerline miles | Project cost | Cost / mile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Five-Year Street Rehabilitation Plan Baseline program. Street selection driven by StreetSaver's Weighted Effectiveness Ratio — pavement life gained per dollar. Favors streets in fair condition. | 353 | 55.15 | $88,620,962 | $1.61M |
| Measure FF Five-Year CIP Plan Targets streets scoring below PCI 50 — the long-deferred segments a cost-effectiveness algorithm skips. Also funds sidewalks, safety and environmental work not counted here. | 54 | 9.51 | $42,119,935 | $4.43M |
| Combined street rehabilitation | 407 | 64.66 | $130,740,897 | $2.02M |
The ratio in the last column is the finding. Measure FF pays 2.8× per mile for the streets Berkeley let go — $4.43M against $1.61M. That is deferred maintenance priced, and it is consistent with the city's own life-cycle curve, which puts the penalty for delay at roughly 8×. The backlog is projected to grow from $330M to $406M between 2025 and 2029 while the city spends about $29.6M a year on it.
| Fund | Source | FY2027 | FY2031 | 5-year total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 501 | CIP / Council Policy on Adequate Street Maintenance Res. 70,456-N.S., July 26 2022 — $8M/yr General Fund commitment, inflation-adjusted. The only line that grows. | $8,487,200 | $9,552,418 | $45,059,697 |
| 134 | Measure BB — Local Streets & Roads | $2,980,000 | $2,980,000 | $14,900,000 |
| 127 | State SB 1 transportation taxes | $2,195,303 | $2,195,303 | $10,976,515 |
| 601 | Zero Waste Fund Offsets pavement damage from collection vehicles. | $2,000,000 | $2,000,000 | $10,000,000 |
| 501 | Capital Improvement Fund | $1,925,000 | $1,925,000 | $9,625,000 |
| 616 | Clean Storm Fund Cross drains at intersections. Excluded from the $91.3M actually available for rehabilitation. | $1,000,000 | $1,000,000 | $5,000,000 |
| 133 | Measure F vehicle registration fee | $155,000 | $155,000 | $775,000 |
| Total baseline funding | $18,742,503 | $19,807,721 | $96,336,212 |
Six of seven sources are flat in nominal terms across all five years. Only the Council-policy line escalates, at 3.0%/yr — so total program funding grows 1.4% a year while the city models construction inflation at 3%. The program loses purchasing power every year by design. Measure FF is on a separate track: ~$15M/yr for 14 years, allocated 45% streets / 15% sidewalks / 30% safety / 10% environmental and fees. The five-year FF program totals $92.3M — about $17M more than five years of collections, reflecting FY2026 revenue carried forward and front-loaded into FY2027.
The February 4 informational briefing to the FITES policy committee presented the paving program as a $89.5M / 54.78-mile plan funded from six sources, one of them marked TBD. It stated the policy target of PCI 70 and the mid-50s current condition on the same slide, and then never connected them. A reader of that deck could not learn that the city had modeled the target and found it unreachable, nor that a voter-approved tax roughly a third the size of the baseline program existed and was being planned in parallel.
By July the numbers had firmed: baseline funding rose to $96.3M (Clean Storm resolved at $1M/yr; the CIP and Council-policy lines both revised upward), the plan grew to 55.15 miles and $88.6M, and Measure FF appeared as a companion resolution. The projection, the backlog figure, and the $8M/yr shortfall all surfaced for the first time in the adoption packet — five months after the public briefing and three weeks before the vote.
The commission voted unanimously to recommend the plan with amendments: integrate Measure FF and baseline paving dollars into one program, and restore Claremont Avenue, Oxford Street and northern Telegraph Avenue for paving and multimodal safety work.
Staff declined all three. The two programs remain formally separate ("developed on a separate but complementary track"). Council adopted the staff version on July 7.
Each individual deferral has a defensible engineering rationale. The pattern is the point: the corridors carrying the most traffic and the worst injury history are the ones whose repaving is contingent on other, larger, unfunded projects — and they drop out of the measurable program while the PCI clock runs.
| Fiscal year | Centerline miles paved | Context |
|---|---|---|
| FY2019 (incl. FY2018) | 5.3 | Averaging 2.7/yr |
| FY2020 | 2.6 | |
| FY2021 | 1.9 | Low point |
| FY2022 | 2.6 | Council adopts the $8M/yr General Fund policy, July 2022 |
| FY2023 | 7.0 | |
| FY2024 | 10.7 | |
| FY2025 | 8.4 | |
| FY2026 (projected) | 10.3 | FY2024–26 total: 29.4 miles |
BeTH's position is not that nothing has changed. The 2022 General Fund commitment roughly quadrupled annual output, from a 2–3 mile historical average to 8–11 miles. Councilmember Blackaby's claim on July 7 that the new plan doubles the prior five years is approximately right depending on the baseline chosen: against FY2021–25 actuals (30.6 miles) the 64.66-mile plan is 2.1×; against FY2022–26 (39.0 miles) it is 1.7×.High
The problem is that quadrupling output still leaves the network losing ground without Measure FF, and gaining only six points with it. That is what a $330M backlog on a $1.2B asset does to a $30M annual program.
The staff report's Measure FF summary (Table 4) puts five-year street rehabilitation at $42,119,935. The itemized project list in Attachment 2 totals $38,064,984. The difference is $4,054,951, unexplained in the report. Per year the direction flips: FY2027's project list runs $517k above Table 4, FY2028–30 run $1.67M, $2.34M and $560k below it, and FY2031 matches to the dollar — which argues against a uniform soft-cost adder.
The Fiscal Impacts section states the combined five-year street budget "totals over $139 million." The two component figures in the same report — $96,336,212 and $42,119,935 — sum to $138,456,147. Small, but it is the headline dollar figure of the item.
Every one of the 407 street sections carries an estimated cost, but the report publishes no unit rates, no contingency assumption at the section level, and no reconciliation to recent bid results. The only stated reserve is a program-level ~3% against asphalt price volatility — thin, on a five-year horizon the city itself escalates at 3% a year.
The FY2031 Measure FF exhibit page is headed "Edwards Byron Street Rehab Project — Fiscal Year 2030." The adopting resolution cites "Resolution No. 70,2040-N.S." where it means 70,204. Immaterial to the dollars; material to how carefully a 70-page adoption packet is being read before a vote.
Measure T1 quietly stopped paying for paving. In September 2025, on the consent calendar, Council removed the $3.95M T1 Streets Contribution to Annual Paving from the Measure T1 Phase 2 list, with the note that other funding had been identified. The FY2027–31 plan adopted ten months later lists seven funding sources. T1 is not among them. The "other funding" was, in substance, the General Fund. See the T1 tracker →High
The pattern across three measures. T1 (2016, $100M) promised 76 infrastructure projects; 21 of 37 Phase 2 projects remain unfinished nine years on, five were cut to design-only, and the required six-month financial reporting has lapsed. Measure FF (2024, ~$267M) promised PCI 70 by 2036; the first plan built on it projects 62. In each case the measure passed on a specific, checkable commitment, and the shortfall surfaced years later inside a technical document rather than in the reporting the measure required.
What it means for November 2026. Berkeley is asking voters for a 0.5% district sales tax and a $300M general obligation bond. The paving analysis is the cleanest available test of the city's capacity to convert a dedicated revenue stream into a stated outcome — and the city's own answer, published three weeks before the July vote, is that it falls about $8M/yr short. The argument against the November measures is not that the need is fabricated; the $330M backlog is real and documented. It is that Berkeley has not yet demonstrated it can hit a number it put on a ballot.
First annual report due fall 2026. Measure FF requires reporting on streets paved, cost per mile, changes in citywide PCI, the PCI of every street, and a rolling five-year schedule. Whether that report restates the 62-not-70 projection in plain language is the near-term test of the oversight structure.
The Street Maintenance Policy requires Council to readopt the five-year plan biennially. Staff have said changes will be made September–December 2027. If construction inflation continues to outrun the 1.4%/yr funding growth, the 2028 plan buys fewer miles for more money.
All three are promised a return to the paving program "once scope, funding and timing are sufficiently defined." None has a date. Track whether they reappear in the FY2029–2033 plan.
Staff commit only to "continue to evaluate additional funding sources and scope adjustments." Watch whether that becomes a request for another measure — and whether the PCI-70 statutory deadline of December 31, 2036 is ever formally acknowledged as missed.